Update … New-Old guard sweeps back at Vic Bar’s election … Conservative candidates with the big how-to-vote brochures … More of the same … Elites swiping other elites … Fury at pandemic management legislation … Stasi in charge … Career crippling mojitos at Tory silk’s gaff  … Shadow AG’s crashes his career … Phew

The conservative faction that romped home last time under the banner of “Vote For Change” was rebranded with another prosaic catch-cry, “Putting Members First”. 

The faction has once again had a resounding victory, capturing all the office bearer positions, and all but one of the category A, category B and category C spots on the council. 

The president for 2022 is the previous senior vice, Róisín Annesley QC, described by The Age as a “proud conservative woman”. 

The campaign was all about doing away with the woke, feel-good stuff about equality, gender diversity, social values and instead focusing on cost-cutting, rent reductions, transparency and a new lease for the codgers’ haunt, the Essoign Club. 

Importantly, the group said it is committed to ensuring the bar is a “member-led professional association that gives a voice to all members, not an elite few”. 

You know something is up, when an elite few claim not to be representing an elite few. 

A “voting guide” was distributed by the “Putting Members First” ticket, which includes many reheated oldies from “Vote For Change”. 

You can see here all the marvellous boasts about “core principles and shared vision”. Any inspiration from Schmo Morrison’s election hype is purely coincidental. 

Someone was unkind enough to distribute views poking holes in the gloss:

In the meantime, Vic has had conniptions about the government’s Pandemic Management Bill, which outgoing president Blanden said would have pleased the Stasi – a comment many found an offensive reflection on the bar. 

According to this report, Blanden is a member of the Liberal Party – so his criticism of the Bill is predictable, as is his appearance in a soft ball and eye-glazing session with The Tamil from the Law of Rulers Institute. 

Here’s a summary of the bar’s submission on the Pandemic Management Bill. 

Much of the criticism ignores the fact that many of the Bill’s provisions are already found in existing legislation.

The council election results are here.  

According to the Melbourne Hun it was the mojitos at Sammy Griffith and IPA favourite Stuart Wood’s gaff that led to the unspeakable Tim Smith’s resignation as shadow attorney general followed by the decision not to contest the next election. 

The mojitos delivered a reading of 0.131 nearly three times the limit. It was pitiful to see the member for Kew’s Jag being towed away. 

All this after the High Court sent Wood’s climate denying, Barrier-Reef-in-good-health expert, Peter Ridd, packing. 

It was Wood who lobbied cabinet members to get Simon Steward a slot on the Last Chance Saloon. 

Quite some wreckage.